So what does one do before the 2011 One Lap of America?

Tune the nut behind the wheel and improve the car so that it’s ready for next years event!

I’ll share some experiences with how my Evo X faired at the May 24/25th HPDE event down at Watkins Glen earlier this week. I was coming down off a high placing well at the One Lap event and wanted to see what the car could do at my home track by pushing it a bit harder without breaking anything. Well at the end of my first video I found the one weakness the car might have and did a small off track detour but it wasn’t anything too major. Luckily they had just revamped Watkins Glen for safety and areas that were gravel traps were now paved over with improved safety walls set in place in case the paved run off areas weren’t enough to recover.

It seems that while the threshold braking is amazing with the Girodisc 2 piece front rotors and Rabyestos ST-43 pads, even the Yokohama AD08 have their limits for traction when on the binders hard. At Watkins Glen there seems to be numerous braking zones that are downhill, and once the ABS engages fully, it really doesn’t slow the car down nearly as well when compared to threshold braking where the ABS is just about to kick in. What caught me off guard at times was when I would get a late pass point bye in the black (advanced) run group, most of the cars weren’t lifting as we approached the turn so being stuck passing offline meant I had to extend my braking zone into the apex of the turn, make corrections at the apex based on how early I entered, and then power out with relative safety if I did it right.

When I really stomped on the brakes and got full ABS to kick in, the car became very greasy and didn’t want to rotate very well at all when at the limits. I had the ASC turned off one touch which meant at least the power was not being cut, but the ABS were supposed to still be there to assist in steering the car to where I had the wheel pointed which didn’t always seem to be the case. It seemed that if the system was overwhelmed it would just understeer and kick in antilocks so much that I likely had to let off the brakes, correct the angle, and then get on them again in order to make it work. I probably could have also gotten on the power and power drifted the car around the turns when overcooked but figured it should work with using braking control as well. I experimented with turning the ASC off for 5 second push so that the ABS assist for turning was off as well but never got into a situation where I could definitively say it made the difference.

Last year I vividly remembered that the Porsche GT3′s were about equal on the track for power, braking, and handling where as a certain black 2007 Z06 driven by a nice guy named David was tearing up the track when he had race rubber and most everyone else was on steet tires. Well this year with the Coilovers, stickier street tires, and possibly slightly better driving I noticed a change. While the power on the straights was still similar since I detuned the car to around 500 crank hp at 25 psi, I could outbrake those GT3′s and easily turn inside of them in the corners now. The Z06 that I attempted to pace last year which warped my brakes after 1 lap overdriving the car was now within sight for a couple laps, and by the last session of the 2nd day I was able to keep pace doing 2:15 laps and the car seemed to hold up fine without any worries. After talking it seems that when he gets a clean lap he can lap around 2:10 or slightly better so my next goal will be to tweak a few things to see if I can pull that pace off on a street tire setup through increased reliable power (~650 crank HP goal), wider street tires (295mm?), and possibly a few suspension changes.

Overall the BC Racing ER series coilovers performed quite well and I increased the stiffness of my shocks bound (compression) and rebound to a stiffer 20 (of 30) setting all around with a few tweaks after that. Overall the car had minimal tire rollover on those settings with the -2.5* front and -1.5* rear camber settings and the stiffer shock setup. Still you could really toss the car around and not have any worries that the car would suddely experience snap oversteer, and besides the ABS taking over control at times, the car turned in amazingly well for 20+ minutes of track time and allowed accurate vehicle placement without having to muscle the car. As I pushed the limits a bit more on the 2nd day, I started learning the technique to get more bite out of the tires where you release the wheel and turn in again. The only places the car felt a bit dangerous was up the esses so I was still letting off slightly and boosting 20 psi until the car felt more settled before powering up to the back straight where I was reaching 145-150mph before getting on the binders at the 400 ft mark leading into the bus stop.

The only major issue I had was fuel starvation, and with the new found handling and more aggressive cornering it turns out that a 2nd session is not possible without topping off the tank since the left hand exit from the off camber turn 9 caused fuel starvation I would rather not experience again. Luckily I brought my 5 gallon fuel tank and just refilled that when making my mid day refueling trip in town. Plans are to get a fuel surge tank setup in place along with a 400 LPH fuel pump matched to the Deatschwerks 1500cc injectors I have yet to install. Basically at 7 MPG I go through about 1 gallon of fuel every two laps at Watkins Glen long course (3.4 miles) and that means after 12 laps (~27 minutes) the car is approaching half a tank of fuel.

I’ve got about 50 minutes of in car video footage from the various sessions over the 2 day HPDE and tried to list a brief summary under each video. The first one has the most traffic where I must have passed over 20 cars during the entire session and the last video shows that Z06 on race rubber that I’m keeping pace with just barely. So go to full screen mode and turn up the sound because it’s “almost” as good as being there yourself.

You’ll have to double click the videos to enter youtube in order to see the full descriptions.

Day 1 – Session 3 (Heavy Traffic, passing 15 cars in this 10 min clip)

 Day 1 – Session 4 (Passing Steve’s near stock Evo X on back stretch, caught silver Z06)

Day 2 – Session 1 (Late Passing Exercise with Steve at start, later doing some 2:16 laps)

 Day 2 – Session 2 (4 wheel drifts down the chute and late passing practice)

Day 2 – Session 3 (Pacing Black Z06 through traffic with around 2:15 lap times)

Returning to run the car on Watkins Glen for a track session, after spending a week on One Lap of America, is like celebrating Christmas after opening all of your Hanukkah gifts.

It also helps relieve the knee jerking pain that happens after One Lap is over and the entire world goes silent. For this year’s team it was a chance to get back on the track, have some fun, and relieve a little stress from the build up of One Lap. Tim, Chris and I booked the trip to the Glen with the PCA group long before One Lap. Sean was placed in a marital and financial holding pattern, which might get him back on track again in the fall if we are lucky.

I had the easiest amount of preparation time in the group, as it involved putting a set of seasoned brake pads on the relatively stock Evo X with only 10K miles on it. The only other things on the agenda was to get the Race-Keeper system setup in the car and attempt to tune out the smoke screen of fuel, indicating I was running a bit too rich.

Two weeks before we left, Chris left me with homework to do,

and I ended up data logging the car to work every day. The car went away last winter with a nasty case of running too rich, and I wanted to make sure to lean it out enough before this Watkins Glen trip, to prevent the black flag from coming out. A few emails with spreadsheets, followed by a few revisions to the current ECU tune, and Chris had the car running relatively smoke free, with an underlying clause that I need to get a wideband o2 sensor before he leans it out any more.

Having the car relatively stock and running laps with Chris was going to be painful. I love my car, but Chris has 150 HP on me, a suspension that was handed down by the gods of Darkside Engineering, brakes of biblical proportions thanks to Tuners Nation and Girodisc. I feel a little under-prepared all of a sudden. I was also a little light in the wallet, after the One Lap trip, so taking out a second mortgage to keep up with Chris’s modifications, wasn’t going to happen.

One of the upgrades from the dealer in the Mitsubishi Evo X, is an aluminum shift knob. It has always confused me as to why this is considered an upgrade, as the aluminum hasabout two days during the whole year where it doesn’t burn or freeze your hand when you grab it. So yes, my only upgrade on the car is a new short throw shifter along with a shift knob made of derlin to keep my hand from burning every time I go to grab the shifter. Completely lame, not a chance in hell it will make a difference against Chris, but it made me feel better.

The Death of the Race-Keeper

I finally had a car to really get to play with Race-Keeper and I managed to blow it.  Race-Keeper has this cool capacity to datalog information from your cars computer while you drive, so you can use this to overlay things right over your video.  We didn’t get to use this for the 1992 Galant VR4 on One Lap, since it uses OBDII, a standard in all vehicles after 1996.

I had run some updates on the Race-Keeper before One Lap, which somehow left me unable to record to the SD card.  Most of One Lap, I recorded using USB sticks, which you can just plug into the side of the device.  Now I needed that USB port to make the fancy logging portion work, so I attempted to get the Race-Keeper update pushed to the device again.  Of course I completely lobotomized the device, leaving it unable to produce even a blinking light for me.  I sadly gave it back to Wilson Performance before I even hit the road for Watkins Glen.  Perhaps we can try that one again in the fall.

So with last years brake pads, Chris’s old set of tires, a stock Evo X with a tuning update, and no real video system to play with, I was ready for Watkins Glen.

Now that One Lap is over and I am back to reality, its time to fix the VR-4 and get her ready for a couple of days at my home track, Watkins Glen.  If you’ve followed us along our journey you know the VR-4 had some issues.  We popped a head gasket right off the bat, tossed a rocker arm at Hallet, the radiator was oozing in a couple of spots, we had brake issues, front wheel bearing issues, broken wheel studs, and one really cool off road excursion.

The first thing I did when I got home is re-installed my Baer track brake kit.  That didn’t take much time and like an old friend, it was nice to have them back.  Then I got on the ball and started ordering parts.  Brakes, rotors, a new radiator, and material to build brake cooling ducts and a bigger radiator catch can were all desperately needed.  After putting it off as long as I could I finally dug into the head gasket.  The first thing I found was a 2″ split in the intercooler pipe coupler that connects to the throttle body.  The amazing thing is I think its been split since mid week during One Lap.  Another testament to ECMlink and its V3 speed density.  The car didn’t miss a beat even with the huge leak.

I knew the radiator had issues.  It may have been damaged due to the bad head gasket or it could have just failed because it couldn’t take the abuse.  Either way I have a new one ready to go and after a little welding it should slip right in.  Inspecting the old radiator I found at least three areas that were leaking where the core connects to the end tanks.

I could tell just by looking at the car that I “tweaked” the front end when I went off at Hallet.  The evidence was hard to miss as one of the front wheels has about a degree more camber then the other and that tire also shows some wear on the inside indicating a toe issue as well.  Something caught my eye while working on the head gasket…I think something moved on one of the RRE caster/camber plates

Once I got the head off the car and inspected things I was happy to find that the rocker which had fallen out actually stayed put.  There is a noticeable grove in the cam lobe which means it will have to be replaced but there isn’t enough time before the Glen so I am just going to leave it as is.

At first glance the head gasket surface between the head/block looked good but once I pealed the gasket from the head I found three areas where not only had the gasket leaked but big chunks of it were missing.  That’s some real gasket carnage!

A new head gasket is on and my fingers are crossed that it will hold.  This time I’ll keep the boost to 25psi or less and not attempt any more of those 33psi dyno runs.

Its also time to say good-bye to a good friend.  The Forced Performance FP3052 that Art Hoffman loaned us for the race is off the car and ready to be shipped back.  With all the problems we had this year that turbo was flawless.  It pulled like a freight train in every gear and with the tuning we did this year lag was not an issue.  A big thanks to Art Hoffman for lending his support again this year and for Forced Performance for making sure it gets back to Art in perfect shape.

It seems that no matter how early you start trying to source parts for an event,  there will always be last minute surprises. Luckily we have Garfield on our side over at TunersNation.com and he contacted GiroDisc to see if a miracle could be pulled off when he found out that DBA couldn’t deliver the rotors until middle of May. Instead of sourcing in another set of 2 piece front slotted rotors, Girodisc agreed to bump the package up by including a set of Raybestos ST43 Race Pads and Stainless Steel Braided Lines bringing the total parts donation between them to well over $1000! If you haven’t seen these brake components before in person you’ll have to check them out some time as they are something you want to put in a display case.

This is the same winning combo that Ryan Gates has used for his Time Attack racing and I’ve already had great results running these Raybestos ST43 pads on the stock Rotors. Since I was having some issues with rotor warpage on the 2nd day of tracking the car it was mainly due to me pushing the car to higher speeds and giving it less time to cool down.  While the rotors should have gotten here Wednesday afternoon, it turns out that somehow Fedex sorted the packages wrong and started sending them back West again! After some concerned phone calls I had them turn the package around but regardless that meant that installing the rotors before the trip was going to be impossible. Luckily they were delivered at about 11 am in Thursday and we departed for South Bend, Indiana by 2pm. While it would have been less stressfull to have these already on the car, the plan is get the rotors and race pads swapped in durig the 7 hr registration period

I fully expect these rotors to cure all my warping issues and the first real test will be at Road America on Saturday, hopefully Sean won’t need to use them too much during the skidpad test on Friday’s start of the week long event. After getting over 27 MPG on the way here it’s time to start putting the pedal down! I’ll be sure to report back once we get some track time on this combo, but I can already tell that these are going to be a winning combo. Thanks again to TunersNation and GiroDisc for getting the Evo X outfitted with the best stock replacement brake combo! You’ll see the car prominently displaying both company logos as we race the car at the 2010 One Lap of America this year.

With a small budget for the 2010 One Lap of America race the VR-4 team had to get creative.  This was sparked by the discovery of a high-tech rear wing which just so happened to fit a VR-4.  The guys in “the WoRKs” car club of Milwaukee, WI helped us find the wing and arranged for it to get to our fabricator, Curtis of GalantVR4.org.  Curtis took the wink and custom built the pylons to support it using the factory spoiler mounting holes.  The wind arrived at the house last night and it was installed on the spot.  Not only does it look killer but its light and strong too.  This in combination with the front splitter I built should help the VR-4 take its performance to the next level.

Streettunedmotorsports.com has given me free reign of there dyno last Friday morning and afternoon. Last year we put down 355hp on a conservative tune while running 100% duty cycle on a set of Denso 660′s. This year things are a bit different.

Handling the fueling this year is a brand new set of FIC 1050cc injectors which are big enough to be corn ready if need be. The car has also been running ECMlink speed density for a week now so we can finally put that GM MAF where it belongs. The trash!

The goal for was to get the car back to 355hp and then dial in the cams using the adjustable cam gears donated by Autobahntom.  From there we want to play around with advancing both cams to see if we can’t push the power band lower while still holding onto the 355hp target. All while limiting ourselves to 25psi of boost. If there is time and the car is running right we might crank up the boost to see what she will do. Last year we had a boost controller error (I set it wrong) and we did a 30psi pull which netted 377hp at somewhere between 5-6k rpms. So we know there is lots of power left in her.

Friday morning starts a bit late and most of the time is spent dialing in the VE tables in the ECMlink software.  Once I get those dialed in its time to start some real pulls with boost.  Just as I am almost done I can hear one of the chains tapping on the side of the dyno.  At first I didn’t really bother with it but then it go louder and louder.  I hopped out of the car and had one the STM guys rev the car and it wasn’t the chain.  It was comming from under the hood!

It seems to scale with rpm which is bad but it goes away when the clutch is depressed.  That is good but not so hot for the transmission.  Yep, something let go inside my tranny.  Good thing I was local on the dyno and not half-way across the country.

Emery at STM did everything he could to help us out.  He tossed me the keys to the F350 shop truck so I could run home and get my spare transmission and then cleared out a bay in his shop so I could have a space to work.  He said “no worries, we’ll get this done..we have enough hands here.”  So I spent most of Friday night pulling the old tranny out and installing the new one with a lot of help from Cory and Kevin at STM who helped me wrestle the tranny into place.  I also found a loose spring in the ACT street disk and Emery got on the phone and had a low millage disk at the shop in a couple of hours for me.  At Midnight it rolled out and I brought her home.

The RochesterDSM One Lap team owes Emery at StreettunedMotorsports.com a big, big Thank You! for basically opening up there shop to help us out.

The dyno time was rescheduled for Monday after work.  We started out with more work dialing the VE tables in and getting that map to look right.  Emery joined in and we started to make some pulls.  A quick low boost run netted 275Hp and told us everything was running right.  So we put the boost up to 25psi and make a quick pull.  That got us 351Hp which is almost as much as we got last year on 27psi.  A new set of plugs and a few more tweeks gets us into the 360′s.  Another plug change and advancing the intake cam gear 2 degrees gets us to 368Hp with a much better torque curve.  From there we adjusted timing and boost to get to the 370′s, 389Hp, and at 28psi of boost it made 401Hp @ 6400 rpms and 366 torque at 5200 rpms.

Knowing the One Lap EVO X put down 402Hp on the same dyno we decided to give the boost controller another twist to see what she had in her.   This time we had a bit of knock up top which dipped the Hp/Tq numbers on the top end but still netted us 408Hp @ 6300 rpms and 386 ft/lbs of torque at 5100 rpms.  The Hp curve was still climbing before the knock dipped it down a bit.  If we were able to take some more timing out up top it would have made much more but 408Hp was good enough for us especially on a Mustang Dyno.  The boost curve showed that we had 33psi at torque peak and it had dipped down to 31psi at Hp peak.

There’s no way we are running 33psi of boost for this race.  Its just too much power for our spare tranny with its stock center diff.  We’ll be around 25psi which should put us in the mid 360′s which is more then last year.  We will also be on speed density so no more GM MAF hiccups.

I’ve been doing a laundry list of maintenance items this week and Torque Solution was nice enough to send out a new front motor mount that was a bit less stiff than the 90 durometer model I had before. While the polyurethane race motor mount certainly did it’s job well at limiting engine movement, the vibration it passed into the cabin of the car was not so great for a car that also needed to be a daily driver. After coming to the realization that we had a 4500 mile round trip to endure, any unnecessary noise was not welcome if it didn’t significantly contribute to making the car faster around a road course.

The  Torque Solution Billet Aluminum Front Engine Mount for the Evo X was sent out to us for review and so far the 70 durometer rating of this mount is much more livable on a day to day basis. Even my Co-driver Sean noticed a significant noise and vibration reduction coming from the front end of the car. From driving it over the last week I can say it still performs it’s job perfectly of controlling exessive engine movement, and it also felt quite a bit lighter compared to the stock mount due to it’s Billet Aluminum construction. They also sent out some Drive Shaft Carrier Bearing Support Bushings that I installed during my maintenance overhaul of the car this weekend and so far there seems to less play in the driveshaft. I also decided to stiffen up the rubber mounts in the rear differential so that it still has some movement but not quite as much as stock which flops around and not quite as noise inducing as hard mounting would impose.

They also have Shifter Cable Bushings, Shifter Base Bushings, Exhaust Hanger Mounts in various sizes, as well as passenger and driver side engine mounts for the Evo X. TunersNation is an official supplier of Torque Solution products and if you are looking to stiffen up your ride be sure to check them out for the best prices!

By now its no longer a secret that the VR-4 is getting a wing.  Not just a “ricer” looking wing but a real-deal if you have to ask you can’t afford it type of wing.  The deal was too good to pass up so we went for it.  What does a rear wing do?  In simplest terms it pushes down on the back of the car.  The faster you go the harder it pushes.  The angle of the wing can be adjusted to “dial” in the amount of down force.  So why the wing?  Having a rear wing helps keep the rear of the car planted and adds overall to the amount of grip the car has.  It also lets you set the car up to over steer at low speeds when the wing has a smaller amount of down force and when you go faster the car becomes neutral so you can take transitions at higher speeds.  The problem is that whenever you push on the back of the car you end up slightly lifting the front.  That’s important because when you want the car to turn you need all the weight you can get on the front tires.

This is where the front splitter comes in.  A splitter is noting more then a big flat piece of something attached to the area under the front bumper which directs air under the car.  Since the air under the car has a shorter distance to travel then the air going over the car it moves faster..  Bernoullis’ principal says faster moving air has a lower pressure and that lower pressure is what causes front down force.   It’s that down force that we are after to help balance out the added down force of the rear wing.

For a splitter to work it has to be flat, parallel to the ground, and be able to hold together at high speeds.  The benefit of the splitter gets better the further back under the car it goes and in

real race cars is part of an under tray that includes a flat middle and a diffuser at the rear.  With very little time to build a splitter we are only going to bring ours as far back as the front of the front tires.  To help the fact that we are not going very far back under the car we are going to extend the lip of the splitter almost 5 inches beyond the lower lip of the fascia.

To build the splitter I chose a product called alumalite which is a sandwich of aluminum-plastic honeycomb-aluminum.  Its used for signs and the sides of tractor trailers.   I was able to get a 4′ x 8′ sheet of 1/4″ alumalite for $90 locally.  Working with it is pretty easy.  You can drill it, cut it in a table saw, use a grinder, or pretty much any other power tool you have.  Lightweight and strong it’s a pretty versatile material for race cars.

A splitter has to be strong.  It has to be able to withstand high loads without bending.  If it bends you loose some of the benefit and some of the down force.  So to make this as strong as I could I decided to build a frame for it out of 1″ aluminum tube.  The frame would be then bolted to 1/2″ nuts that I will weld to the bottom of the.  I used two on the engine cross member with a third on the radiator core support.  I’ve jacked the car up on the engine cross member so I know its strong enough to handle the loads of the splitter.

I am using 1/2″ bolts to attach it to the car so I welded up some 1″ tube risers to the frame to set the height of the splitter.  The lower the splitter the better it works but the lower you build it the better chance you have of having it rip off when you get a little to aggressive over a set of rumble strips.  I decided to build it with 5″ of ground clearance which is just enough to get in and out of my driveway and low enough, I think, to work.

Once in place there is a large gap between the bottom of the fascia and the splitter that must be filled.  After looking for materials to fill that gap I settled on the alumalite.  By cutting relief cuts on the back side I was able to form it around a Map gas bottle so I knew it would conform to the larger curves of the fascia.

Here are some of the first shots of it one the car.  It takes some getting used to messing up the classic lines of a VR-4 but in the never ending hunt for more speed and more grip it was something we had to try.

With the splitter and the air dam built it was now time to turn to a support system.  I need to build a set of turnbuckles to support the leading edge of the splitter and to allow some up-down adjustment to fine tune the amount of down force.  I found a set of turnbuckles at my local hardware store that along with some threaded rod and clevis pins would give me what I needed.

To get a way to use a clevis pin I welded in some washers into the looped end of the stock turnbuckles and then drilled them to size.

I welded up some mounts to attach to the bumper brace and used some angle aluminum to make the lower mounts.  To attach the lower portion of the turnbuckles I drilled a threaded rod union to accept the clevis pin.

Once all together I painted the lip satin black to help hide it’s ridiculous proportions and did the final install on the car.

Finally once fitted it was time a test drive.  Notice how much clearance I have getting out of my own driveway!  This thing is nuts.  After a couple of days of driving it’s been easy to live with and the looks are growing on me.    I’ve only taken a few hot corners with it and so far it feels like it has more grip.  I think there is a side benefit to the splitter under braking.  As the nose of the car dives down the splitter turns into a big air scoop which I think is going to help.

As with any new part there needs to be some testing and adjustment to see the full benefit and I will have an update once I get this on a race track.

We are one week away from embarking on our little adventure. With events starting on Friday, next Thursday morning we pack up whatever piles we have created over the upcoming week and leave behind whatever doesn’t fit. The teams are scrambling for those last minute items.  It is probably why all is quiet on the website front, as time in the car has taken priority.

The report from team Evo X is that they have a set of race worthy brake pads and rotors headed their way, thanks to our guardian sponsor at TunersNation. While it isn’t the first time Garfield has stepped up to help us out, his support this year surpasses what we could have hoped for.

Chris is learning that having a race car as a daily driver makes it really challenging to get tires mounted, especially when they are on 19″ rims. This is where we, as over-supportive team members, point at the pristine 1996 Eclipse GSX which Chris still has around as a weed blocker and wonder if it will ever run again for these precious moments.

I heard the VR4 running laps in the back roads around town and followed the sound until the car showed up in the driveway. Seeing the car rolling down the driveway was enough to meet my trip requirements.  That is to say One Lap is a wonderful escape from reality of work and life, and I am ready.  A rolling car is all I need to make it happen.

The brake report from Tim comes with a warning sticker that should read “If you want to imprint your face on the windshield, press here”.  For a new product to the US market, it sounds like the Project Mu pads might be a winner and the entire package setup from TunersNation is perfect.  We will see how they react after a few hot laps to warm them up.

There are secret undertones in the works for the VR4 to have some aerodynamics touch ups.  For anybody who has followed the Facebook updates, you have seen some glimpses of the front splitter now on the car.  Knowing Tim that is not the end of the aerodynamics package.

TunersNation has stepped up and sponsored the One Lap VR-4 with a new set of brakes.  It’s no easy task matching the stopping power and economical maintenance cost of the Baer Track system it replaces.  So when Garfield called with the news I was sceptical at first but when the parts started showing up and I could actually put them in my hands it became clear that these new brakes are up to the task.

TunersNation has supplied us with one of there custom 3000GT VR4 kits for the Galant VR-4.  The kit uses the 4-piston calliper from the 91-93 GT VR4 along with its 12.4” rotor.  The callipers are big and beefy.  Cast from only two pieces and with no bridging bolts they feature 0 calliper flex.  This allows for an internal fluid passage between halves which is a more durable design then the Brembo/Wilwood external balance line.

The rotors are from DBA 4000 series which are DBA’s mid-series enhanced performance rotor features Thermal Stability Profiling for improved heat handling and Thermo-Graphicpaint markings for effective heat monitoring.  This rotor incorporates the innovative Kangaroo Paw ventilation design, which runs cooler, stronger and outperforms traditional straight vane disc rotors by up to 20%.

Mounting the callipers are a set of TunersNation own mounting brackets water jet cut from ½” steel.  Hardened bolts hold everything in place and a new set of SS brake lines were included too. To make sure the One Lap VR-4 was well prepared for battle TunersNation sent along two sets of rotors, callipers, and brackets!

Garfield, using one of his countless connections in the business, contacted the people at Project Mu.  Project Mu is like the Hawk Brakes of Japan.  Project Mu donated a set of there HPC+ which feature a high coefficient of friction with the ability to take a beating at the track.

Installation was simple.  After removing the Baer track gear and the brake lines the new bracket is bolted to the spindle with the supplied hardware.  I then mounted the rotor and held it in place with a lug nut.  An interesting side note with the Mitsubishi rotor is that you no longer need the hub centric ring that the Baer kit requires.  One the rotor was on the calliper can be mounted.  Using the supplied washers, I adjusted the calliper spacing so that it was centered on the rotor.  It only took a few minutes and that was done.  The new callipers use the slick drop in pad like the Brembo callipers which makes changing pads at the track a snap.  Installing the brake lines was strait forward and from the removal to the bleeding of the brakes it took all of about an hour to do both sides.

…I will update the post with my driving impressions later in the week.